


Verisimilitude

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Angst, College!19 days, Fluff, Halloween, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 12:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8445931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: Based on an ask/request “where jian yi and mgs are now close friends and he tian gets jealous”.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted: http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/152606923549/verisimilitude

He Tian was supposed to be happy when Jian Yi came back.

Jian Yi was supposed to fill that strange sort of hole that he’d created when he left. He was supposed to bound back in that way of his, entirely ceaseless, everything thrumming. Was supposed to come back like spring: new and renewed and so alive; would fill the space like the break of flowers through soil. 

And He Tian was happy. But it was—not unconditional. 

And it was supposed to be. He was supposed to look at that face of his, all soft skin and softer hair like a kid—still looked like a kid, even with the new sharpness around the edges—and be so relieved that he was back.

Relief. That’s what it had been. At first. And then a slow, worming thing had started. Mild irritation. Annoyance. Curling in him like sickness. Didn’t laugh at him anymore. Didn’t want to tease him like that anymore. Didn’t want anything from him anymore. 

Didn’t want him anymore. 

He looked at him now. Face lit up by the white light of an explosion on the cinema screen. There was a car chase and the loud ricochet of bullets. The hero came on the screen—everyone cheered. A monologue of American patriotism. 

Guan Shan, next to him, watched impassively. But his eyes roamed the screen; he took everything in. Watched it. It was the way, sometimes, he looked at He Tian.

They were halfway through. Guan Shan’s hand had touched Jian Yi’s exactly four times in the bag of popcorn. Jian Yi had gripped Guan Shan’s forearm twice at the scary parts. Guan Shan, once, had jumped. Shared a grin with Jian Yi, a helpless, modest thing. He Tian rarely got that.

When their hands met again, He Tian went for a smoke. 

The late September air was chill outside; the sky had turned dark since they’d gone. He Tian didn’t care about the shiver across his skin and his bare arms. He felt something deep and hot and nauseous in him. He wasn’t an idiot: he knew what it was. 

He hadn’t thought it was going to feel like this. 

Maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t thought he was capable of feeling like this. He was arrogant enough that he thought he’d be above it, but everything was different with Guan Shan, so the surprise shouldn’t have been too great. 

With Guan Shan, pain felt like hot needles; happiness was euphoric. And jealousy—it was everything the movies and the scriptures and the fiction said it would be.

He pulled in a drag, long and slow, felt it filling him to the point where he couldn’t breathe. It didn’t give him the relief he wanted. 

He thought, now, about the irony of it being Jian Yi who might elicit such a thing from him. Jian Yi, who he’d chased without any real effort. Who he’d teased without any real desire. Wanting him like he wanted an itch scratched. Wanting him because he thought Zhengxi should realise that Jian Yi was wanted. Wanting him, mostly, because He Tian couldn’t have him. 

He’d wanted Guan Shan because he couldn’t have him, but it was different. Guan Shan was a possibility. He was brick wall that could be pulled down. Not Jian Yi, an impenetrable steel wall that He Tian couldn’t climb. 

Guan Shan had footholds.  

He Tian smoked another cigarette. Browsed the news on his phone. Another cigarette. People passed him on the street, and he couldn’t lean far enough into the wall to get away from them. Sometimes he just wanted to _get away_.

He closed his eyes, felt the coldness of the evening, watched the passing of car headlights beneath his eyelids as they lit everything in white and orange constellations.

When he opened them, Guan Shan was there, leaning against the railing that separated the pavement from the road. His arms were crossed. 

‘You missed half the movie.’

‘Yeah,’ said He Tian. He stood up a little straighter, but didn’t push away. ‘Well.’

‘Well?’

‘Wasn’t—my kind of thing.’

‘You didn’t have to come,’ said Guan Shan. 

‘I wanted to spend time with you.’

Guan Shan blinked. He said, slowly, ‘Right.’ 

‘What?’

‘Nothing, you just—you always do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘This. Make me feel guilty for liking stupid films and all that other shit that guys my age _like_. And then—you come along anyway even though you don’t like it and you make me feel guilty because I haven’t, I don’t know, made it into something that suits you.’

_What?_ ‘I didn’t—’

‘That’s why I go with Jian Yi, okay? Because he likes it. And that—doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend time with you. It just means that I know you don’t like it so I don’t want you to have to sit in and not have a good time while guys on the screen are running around wearing fucking tights, okay?’

A group of kids walked between them. Talking loud and laughing louder. Music was blasting scratched and tinny through their earphones. When they passed, the noise of them disappearing around the corner of the street, the silence somehow seemed louder.

He Tian swallowed. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,’ He Tian said. ‘It’s not—I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just trying to like what you like because I _want_ to like what you like. I want to—I want you to talk to me, okay?’

Guan Shan looked down at his feet. ‘You don’t have to like any of it to talk to me. I don’t expect that from you.’

_That’s the problem,_ He Tian thought. _I want you to expect that from me. You’re supposed to._

He didn’t say it, but he could see something flash across Guan Shan’s face like he knew what he’d said. Like he knew what He Tian would have said. He knew too well, most of the time, what He Tian was thinking and not saying.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ He Tian muttered. ‘I’m… I’m sorry I walked out.  I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Guan Shan said. ‘I wasn’t fair.’

He Tian wanted to tell him that he was fair. He was allowed to think and say how he felt. But instead he just looked at him. Took in the shadowed line of his jaw, the round of his shoulders that felt so soft and yet so hard under He Tian’s hand. The way his eyes were impossibly open to He Tian. They weren’t hiding anymore. Weren’t trying to stop him from seeing something in case—in case He Tian used it. In case He Tian saw something that was too much. That look gave He Tian everything. 

He said, ‘We’re getting better at this.’

Guan Shan’s lips quirked. ‘One step closer to being two functional people in a normal relationship.’

‘Yeah,’ He Tian said, tone dry with mirth. ‘Don’t want to be too normal though.’ And then, ‘Guys wearing tights?’

‘Shut up.’

He Tian felt himself smile. It was easier, he told himself, not to suppress it. ‘Where’s Jian Yi?’

‘Inside. He said he’d give us a minute. I left him on the slot machine.’ 

‘It’s been longer than minute,’ He Tian observed. 

‘Yeah,’ said Guan Shan. ‘He’s probably blown half his life savings by now.’

‘Life savings?’ He Tian said, slipping a hand into Guan Shan’s back pocket. ‘Please. He’s not grown up that much.’

* * *

Two weeks later, and He Tian had made them dinner. He had tried to. Guan Shan had an exam; he thought he was being nice. Doing the normal thing. He waited, in his apartment, and couldn’t help noticing how the change of it. 

Nothing significant—nothing huge. Just the way the kitchen looked used and not messy. The books and a pile of clean washing on the table that was Guan Shan’s. The pairs of shoes at the door. The pressed indent in the sofa from more than one body. The letters on the side table by the door that Guan Shan started getting sent here because he spent more time at He Tian’s apartment sometimes than he did his own home.

The table was set with a crimson cloth. The rice was being kept warm in the cooker. He’d bought plates for this. He’d lit _candles_. They were scented. 

He glanced at the time on the oven, rubbed at the veins in his wrist with a thumb. He was late. Or—no. He would have been late an hour ago. 

He sat on the sofa. Stood. Sat back down.

Ten minutes later and he had his phone in his hand. It felt heavy.

The call went to voicemail. This was not surprising. Guan Shan rarely charged his phone. It was rarer still that he even used it. 

‘Who would I call?’ Guan Shan would say. 

‘Your mother,’ He Tian had said. ‘Me.’

And He Tian remembered how Guan Shan had just given him this look, and he’d said, ‘If I want to hear your voice I’ll just—I’ll just come to you. Okay convenience and all that bullshit, but—I don’t know. Why have a phone call when I could have the real thing?’

Now, He Tian swallowed down the feeling that was starting to build. The tightness in his throat. The feeling that made his skin itch and made him want to run. The feeling he’d had through middle school and most of high school. 

He stared at the screen. The candles were half-burnt. 

Slowly, he called Jian Yi. 

It rang, rang, and—

‘Hello?’

He Tian felt himself go still. ‘Why are you answering his phone?’

‘I’m so sorry, He Tian,’ Guan Shan said. ‘Jian Yi—he had an argument with Zhengxi. I came over after my exam but he’s not—I don’t really want to leave him alone.’

He Tian didn’t ask how he could possibly have had an argument with Zhengxi when he was still in Australia, and had been since June. He didn’t ask how someone had an argument with someone over Skype.

Instead he said, ‘Why didn’t he call me? I was free today.’

‘He tried to. You blocked his calls after he pranked you, remember?’

He Tian remembered. He’d forgotten to reverse it. But that feeling in his throat had gone now, replaced by that burning, low inside of him.

‘He Tian? I’m—I’m sorry I missed dinner. I know you wanted to—’

‘It doesn’t matter. You can just have it with Jian fucking Yi instead.’

There was a pause. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘Are you coming back?’ He Tian said. He wanted to pretend he hadn’t said it, but it echoed. 

He Tian could hear him breathing slow and steady. Guan Shan used to do that a lot around him, after He Tian said things like that. Like he needed a minute to handle the kind of cruelty that He Tian so easily handed out. He didn’t mean to. Hated how freely it slipped out. How he had to monitor himself to be the sort of _kind_ person that Guan Shan probably deserved more. Someone who made him laugh more than he did. Someone who encouraged him to smile more than he did.

And a voice whispered, and he had been waiting for it, had known it was there somewhere: _Someone like Jian Yi._  

‘I should probably stay,’ Guan Shan said eventually, quiet. ‘Come here. He’d like it if you were here. You mean a lot to him.’

A muscle jumped in his jaw. The phone felt like it was going to break in his grip. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine with you,’ he bit out. 

And then he hung up. 

* * *

It happened, with some sense of finality, on Halloween. They had it in Zhengxi’s student halls, a welcome back for the returning International Relations students as much as a party. 

He Tian and Guan Shan had both been mildly impressed by their efforts. Everything was dark, lights from cars and street lamps blocked out with black sheets over the windows. Pumpkins spilled out through the dorm rooms, and synthetic spiders’ webs clung to the door frames and walls, catching He Tian even when he ducked through the rooms. 

There were tables with bowls of mulled punch, spiced with cinnamon and star anise, and someone had turned a common room into a miniature festival ground, set up with stalls for apple bobbing and a candy floss machine and games.

It didn’t feel like a festival; there were too many spirits in the punch and the lighting was almost too dark and music thrummed through the accommodation block. The costumes were ridiculous and strange and morally dubious. He Tian wore black clothes and a black cloak, and carried around a broom stick disguised as a scythe.

‘You haven’t made much of an effort,’ one girl had told him. 

He Tian had shrugged. ‘I don’t think Death really gives a fuck about how it looks.’

He saw Jian Yi in fleeting glances through the night, usually pressed up against a wall by Zhengxi who had returned, somewhat calmer, a little older, and with a glow of winter Australian sun. Their argument two weeks before, whatever it had been about, was apparently forgotten. 

‘I should have worn something else,’ Guan Shan muttered into his cup, not for the first time. 

He Tian, next to him, hand keeping warm in Guan Shan’s back pocket, as they leaned up against a table, just shrugged. ‘You know how fucking uncreative Jian Yi is,’ he said. 

Guan Shan swallowed another mouthful of punch. His skin was growing peach pink, and He Tian could feel the warm of him through the press of their sides. 

Because he had been swamped with college work, Guan Shan was dressed as a pirate, a pre-made costume Jian Yi had bought from a store near Zhengxi’s campus. Zhengxi, because Jian Yi _was_ fucking uncreative, and had only arrived back in China the night before, was wearing the same. 

‘Nice sword,’ He Tian said when he saw him, emerging from the guys’ bathroom on Zhengxi’s floor. 

‘Nice stick,’ Guan Shan had said, nodding at the makeshift scythe.

There was a moment, weirldy charged, because Jian Yi had already made them down a few shots, and He Tian pushed Guan Shan back into the bathroom and locked the door. 

‘It’s good to see him so happy,’ Guan Shan said now. He Tian followed his eyes to where they rested; Jian Yi was running his hands through Zhengxi’s wet hair, grinning. There was an apple between Zhengxi’s teeth. 

‘He has been pretty insufferable,’ He Tian said. He felt Guan Shan push lightly against him with his hip. 

‘Don’t be mean.’

‘I’m not. One more _Well, Zhengxi would have said,_ and I’d tell him what Zhengxi would have fucking said.’

Guan Shan snorted, but his face was still soft, flushed from the alcohol and the building heat of the room. ‘I don’t think they’d ever been apart that long. I mean—Except when he—’

‘Distance is good,’ He Tian said. Voluntary distance and being taken were too different things. Going away, voluntarily, after Jian Yi had returned, changed things even more. 

Guan Shan said, ‘So you wouldn’t mind if I went off to America for a year?’

He Tian glanced at him. ‘You want to?’

‘I might.’

‘Then… You can do what you want.’

‘That wasn’t what I asked.’

He Tian ran his fingers over the styrofoam blade of his scythe. The music was a little quieter now. It was almost 2AM. 

‘I mean, I’d be coming with you,’ He Tian said. ‘Like you’d be able to get around on your own for a whole fucking year.’

Guan Shan was laughing, and the sound of it made He Tian feel warm—the good warm, not the warmth of alcohol and the too-heavy press of bodies. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘My English is better than yours.’

He Tian stared at him. ‘It really, _really_ isn’t, Guan Shan.’

 The laughter faded, and the smile grew smaller now. He Tian wanted to tell him to keep it. He wanted to ask what he’d done to make it leave. 

‘Say that again,’ Guan Shan said, soft. 

He Tian tilted his head. ‘Hm?’

‘My name. Say it again. You never say it.’

‘That’s just not true,’ He Tian said, leaning, almost unconsciously, towards him. They couldn’t get much closer. His heart was hitching in his chest. He wanted to kiss him so much.

Guan Shan’s eyes fell to He Tian’s lips, and when He Tian leaned forward again he could taste his breath, sugar and cinnamon and rum and star anise. It was intoxicating, and He Tian wanted to taste his mouth. 

But Guan Shan pulled away, stood up. There was a smile on his lips and a look in his eyes that He Tian wanted to chase. He put his drink on the table behind him. 

‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ he said. 

‘I don’t think we finished our conversation,’ He Tian said, watching him. He couldn’t help how low his voice sounded, a rough, grating thing. He thought he could see Guan Shan’s eyes darken, his breath hitch at the promise of it. 

‘You’ll have to wait,’ he pushed out. 

He Tian bit down on his cheek as he watched Guan Shan leave, heading down the hallway. _Death waits for no one_ , he thought.

It happened, next, like a movie. But it felt entirely too real. 

Time had passed, a little too much, and He Tian wondered if he’d fallen. Gotten lost even though the bathroom was just down the fucking hallway. Maybe he’d gotten caught up by a group of students.

He put his cup, empty, next to Guan Shan’s. Somehow it seemed darker now, and it was difficult to make out faces until they were right in front of him. The hallway was narrow and not long, and the glow of the green fire exit sign washed out dim and pale, and it was the only thing that let He Tian see him. 

Guan Shan was just standing there—hadn’t noticed him—staring at the notice board pinned to one of the walls, filled with posters and a university calendar and student vouchers for drinks deals at the bars off campus. He was reading them like he was interested in them, and He Tian was content to watch, how he read each of them like they were interesting. 

He Tian would have wondered what he was looking for—what he was doing—but he had been caught by nothing more than vague curiosity. They’d go shopping and He Tian would only realise Guan Shan had stopped walking when he was half a street away, caught by something in a shop window: an antique pewter tea pot; a poster for a visiting author in a book shop; a pair of neon orange football boots.

 And He Tian wouldn’t do anything. Would just lean on the bonnet of a car parked by the street and watch him. Wait until Guan Shan caught the reflection of him in the window and turned with a shrug. 

‘Let’s go,’ he’d say, and He Tian wanted to tell him he’d get it for him—the boots, the tea pot. That they could go to the signing and the talk if they wanted to. But, more, he wanted to ask what it was that interested him in that. What had made him stop. Because Guan Shan wasn’t absentminded. Everything about him always seem vaguely concentrated to one goal, set up by principles and some strange set of values and a purpose that He Tian had yet to ask. 

So, now, he watched him. Wondered what he was looking at. And there was a noise, from the end of the hall, a shock of pale hair and pale skin that meant Jian Yi hadn’t needed to do much to dress as a ghost. Guan Shan hadn’t even noticed Jian Yi stumbling from the bathroom: his face was so close to the glass. 

And He Tian watched, in sort of slow motion, as Jian Yi put his hands on Guan Shan’s shoulders, smiling a dark thing that made He Tian’s stomach roll, and as he turned him to put his lips on his like he’d done it before and like it was what they were _used_ to. 

Guan Shan stumbled back, and Jian Yi went with the motion. Guan Shan’s hands were on the wall behind him. ‘What—I’m not—’

‘Fuck,’ said Jian Yi, staring at him, eyes wide with horror. ‘I’m so—I thought—I’m so sorry. I thought you were Zhengxi.’

They looked around them, nervous, but they shouldn’t have bothered. He Tian was already gone.

* * *

He was walking when Guan Shan found him. The route from Zhengxi’s block back to his own apartment in the city was not a difficult one. He was not moving fast, because he thought if he moved faster he was going to throw up, and his legs weren’t really—nothing was really cooperating. Nothing was doing what he wanted it to. 

It was cold out, November now, and the streets were empty, and it meant that He Tian could hear his breathing too loudly, and hear his own footsteps. It meant that his thoughts were even louder, some senseless tirade of spite and white noise that, mostly, told him what an idiot he’d been. 

What a naive idiot to think that this was something he’d get. That he was allowed this kind of thing that was so close to happiness. Hadn’t his father raised him better than that? 

_Don’t delude yourself_ , something quietly said. _It_ was _happiness. Real happiness. And that’s what makes it all worse._  

He shook his head, could taste blood where he was biting the inside of his cheek and trying not shout out something that would be wordless and too much. 

It was twenty minutes before Guan Shan came, but he didn’t know that time had really passed, and Guan Shan was like a hologram in front of him, because the image of Jian Yi’s mouth pressing into his was replaying in his head that it was hard to tell what was real. 

‘He Tian—He Tian stop—’

‘Fuck off,’ He Tian muttered, shrugging off Guan Shan’s touch.

‘What are you—where are you going?’

‘Fuck _off_ , Guan Shan,’ he said again, a warning, and he didn’t think Guan Shan would like the way he said his name now. 

‘Would you just—For god’s sake will you just listen—’

He Tian did what he wanted: he stopped. Turned around so abruptly and felt the thought glance in him: how good the momentum would have been for a punch. He felt the possibility of it in his curled fist, and hated that it was there. He hated that it was still an option; an almost reflex. Hated that he would ever do that. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be. It wasn’t supposed to be like _this_. 

‘You kissed him,’ He Tian said. ‘You fucking kissed him.’

‘I—What?’

‘Don’t do that. Don’t fucking pretend like you didn’t.’

 ‘We were wearing the same fucking costume,’ said Guan Shan. ‘Me and Zhengxi. He thought I was him.’

‘Right,’ says He Tian. ‘Because you both look so alike.’

‘Oh, fuck off, He Tian. It was dark, we’ve both been drinking. He could barely _walk_.’

‘Liked that, did you?’

Guan Shan hit him. Not an open palm thing that would have stung. This was bruising and made him stagger. He was going to feel it in the morning when he flexed his jaw. 

It wasn’t the hurt that made his eyes widen; it was that Guan Shan had done it. 

‘Don’t—I don’t want it to be like this anymore,’ he’d said, a year ago. More. ‘I don’t want us to be hurting each other like this anymore. It’s not—it’s not funny. I don’t—just talk to me. Just—If you’re angry just _talk_.’

And He Tian had said okay. Yeah. Of course. And now Guan Shan had—

He Tian swallowed. Guan Shan’s eyes were swimming. They were dark, so dark, pupils filling the irises. He had his fist pressed against his chest like it had hurt _him_. His chest was rising shallow and fast. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I just—Don’t you dare say anything like that again.’

He Tian rubbed at his jaw. His voice was gruff. ‘I deserved it.’

Guan Shan looked away, head shaking. He swiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his poet shirt. ‘Did you think—you thought we were fucking? Has that what this whole thing has been about for the past few months? I get that maybe you’re jealous but you go out with your friends from high school and middle school and that’s fine. I don’t think you’re all getting each other off or—’ 

‘Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot, all right? I’m not. I know that you and Jian Yi—’

‘No. No, He Tian, _you don’t know_. Because if you did you’d know that Jian Yi spends half the fucking time talking about Zhengxi when he’s not talking about some game or film or something, and when I’m not talking about that I’m fucking talking and thinking about—’ He bit off, turned his head away again. His face was a deep burgundy flush.

‘Go on,’ He Tian said. He couldn’t blink or he’d miss this moment. ‘Talking and thinking about what?’

‘Don’t be a dick,’ Guan Shan muttered. ‘You know what.’

‘Indulge me.’

‘I’m—It’s _you_ , all right? It’s always been you. Even when I fucking hated you and—and I’m starting to fucking hate you right now because you don’t get that I—’

‘You—’

‘I love you, okay? I love you. Part of me wishes I didn’t. But I do. I do.’

He Tian watched him. The words fell from him jumbled and fast and his breathing quickened. Maybe he wouldn’t have said it if he was sober. Maybe He Tian wouldn’t have felt that kind of bursting, blooming thing inside himself he wasn’t so remarkably drunk. 

He stood a step forward, and Guan Shan watched him with a kind of nonchalance that he tried and failed to keep a constant. He Tian could see him trembling, and Guan Shan’s tongue darted out.

‘I haven’t always been good to you,’ He Tian murmured, when he was close enough, when they were flush against each other, and He Tian could put a hand on the back of his head, thumb reaching around to brush his lower lip, the other resting on the warmth of his waist beneath his shirt.

‘He Tian—’

‘No,’ said He Tian, turning his face back because Guan Shan always looked away and he didn’t want that. He wanted him to _look_ at him. Look at him and only him and not look away. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never shown it how I wanted to. And you could do so much better than—’

‘I know,’ said Guan Shan. ‘I know that you love me. I knew what you were trying to say when it came out wrong. I know, all right? You don’t need to—’

‘I do. You need to hear it. I love you so much and—and I don’t hate it. I don’t.’

‘I didn’t mean it when I—’

‘I love that I love you. That’s what I hate. I hate it because I shouldn’t want that. I’m not supposed to get that. That’s never been the sort of person I was. But I am now. I am. And I love you and I don’t _want_ to stop loving you. And I’m going to fuck up still. I know I will. Because I—I fuck up _a lot_.’ 

He put his forehead onto his, could feel his shaking, and knew that Guan Shan’s eyes were closed too. He could hear his words, and how desperate they were—how ridiculous they were. He’d regret them tomorrow. Maybe. But for now: ‘I just need you to be patient with me. I don’t mind if you hate me so long as you love me. Just—be patient. Please.’

‘I will,’ Guan Shan said, so quiet that it balanced on the edges of a whisper. His eyes opened, and He Tian felt like he was looking at—into—something he shouldn’t be. Guan Shan shouldn’t have trusted him with this. He was going to break it. ‘No one is perfect, He Tian. No one. Stop thinking that you have to be that.’

‘I want you to have something perfect.’

‘And I don’t want you to be it. I want you to be you. I want you to—to be someone who makes mistakes so I can watch how you learn from them. I want you to make them because I know how perfect you are when you grow. And it doesn’t matter that you keep making mistakes, okay? There’s no time limit. And—and if you want, we’ve got as many hours and seconds and years to make them as you want.’

‘I want that,’ He Tian said. The honesty of it was hurting him because he felt like he was making promises that he knew he wasn’t going to be able to keep, but Guan Shan was shaking head.

‘No promises,’ Guan Shan said. ‘No ties. We just each give as good as we’ve got—’

‘But—’

‘And that will have to be enough. It will have to be.’

He Tian wasn’t holding him anymore. _This_ kind of touching was He Tian clinging to him. He’d never thought he’d have put this kind of thing onto another person. It was always just going to be himself, and no one else. Even when he was fifteen he knew that if it came to anything it wouldn’t be a lasting thing. Everything would have been torn down, ruinous and burning. He would have ruined it. And Guan Shan… 

He looked at him now. Still there, still with him. _Why?_ he wanted to ask. _Why are you still here? Why do you still stick around even when I hurt you?_

And Guan Shan knew the thoughts he didn’t say aloud. And he said, ‘Because I am. Because I want to be. Stop thinking I’m too good for you, okay? We’re good for each other.’

‘Really?’ He Tian said. He wanted to believe it. Wanted to so much. He had to.

‘Really,’ Guan Shan said. He give He Tian a kiss that tasted of cinnamon and star anise and something darker, and He Tian kept searching for it. Held onto him. Sank into him. It was so cold now, but they weren’t trembling because of it—because of something else. He kept going. Kept pushing. Felt Guan Shan buckle until they fell into each other, seeking. And, eventually, found it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted: http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/152606923549/verisimilitude


End file.
